© Understanding the Father's Love

Part 3

Loving as He Loves Me

by Debbie Guinn

“We love because He loved us first.”

1 John 4:19 (NIRV)

Last January—January 6, 2008, to be exact—our pastor preached a sermon that has continued to make an impact on my life, even today. This sermon, titled “Resolutions to Remember” was not your ordinary New Year's resolution pep talk. It was taken from Matthew 22:34-40 and he challenged us with two resolutions that we not only should make but also showed us how those were resolutions that we could keep all year long…and longer.

In Matthew 22:37 , Jesus tells the Pharisees that the greatest commandment in the law is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Our number one resolution should be to love God with all of who we are…with every single fiber of our being. Our pastor explained how we often try to put God as our top priority, placing family, friends, careers, etc. in a priority list under Him. However, that doesn't work because we often end up separating God out from those other things. He explained that loving God should be our defining priority—like the center of a wheel—with all of the other things in our lives stemming out from Him (like spokes). When loving Him is our defining priority, it will influence every other relationship and commitment we have in our life.

Jesus goes on in Matthew 22:39 to say that the second greatest commandment is to “ Love your neighbor as yourself .” Many people have used this verse to say that Jesus is telling us we need to love ourselves before we can love others. However, that isn't what Jesus is saying. He was talking to the Pharisees who had no problem loving themselves; they thought quite highly of themselves already. Jesus is saying that we are to love others in the exact same way that we love ourselves…in other words to elevate others to the same level that we value ourselves.

Notice that verse 40 says “ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Think about that for a minute. If I steal, bear false witness (lie), commit adultery, dishonor my parents, covet, etc., my attitude is in a place that says I am of more value than you. Do you see how all these commandments are summed up under this one? The Pharisees had created hundreds of laws but all of the God given laws go back to these two commandments of loving God with all of who I am and loving my neighbor as myself.

I am constantly amazed at God's perfect timing. I have longed to finish the series I started back in June on Understanding the Father's Love. Month after month, I have sat down and tried to write this third segment but each time, God has redirected me to another topic. Today, however, I see how perfect His timing is as I remember just how much He taught me in this very area, one year ago today, when He convicted and challenged me in my own heart to respond to His love for me, by loving in return.

Understanding my Father's love has been a step by step process for me…one where each step has built on the other. Since it has been so long since I've written on this subject, I do want to review briefly, what I have already covered. The first step was to fully understand that father/child relationship with my Father…to see myself as a Daddy's girl. To read more about this process, check out the June article, Daddy's Girl . Once, I clearly established that relationship, I prayed to understand more of the width and length, height and depth of Christ 's love. As God answered that prayer, I was able to trust God more with my life…finding that His love for me was perfect and perfect love does indeed cast out fear. My July article, Freedom from Fear , talked about this incredible freedom from fear that I have discovered as I have learned to trust His perfect love for me.

As I began experiencing freedom from fear, that freedom went far beyond the basic fears of something terrible happening to one of my children, financial ruin, etc. I also found myself free from other fears such as the fear to love. I opened my heart to God's love, trusting in His perfect love, and discovered I was no longer afraid to love…to love not only God but others as well. So, how could understanding my Father's love for me enable me to love others without fear?

I didn't exactly jump from understanding God's love for me to being able to love others. It began with loving Him, first and foremost. Loving God actually came somewhat easily once I understood just how much He loved me. It really isn't hard to love those who we know truly love us; it just seems to come naturally once that trust is developed. When we know, without a doubt, that we are loved by a parent, spouse, or friend, our natural response is to love them in return. It is the same with God. The more I comprehended just how deeply God loved me, the easier it became to love Him.

So, when our pastor preached that sermon last January, it was just what I needed for God to take my journey of understanding His love one step further. It all made so much sense to me. I had tried to make loving God my top priority and failed because I didn't know how to find time for all the other important things in life without setting Him aside. When I heard the concept of making Him the defining priority, rather than the top priority, it all made sense. I made a commitment to God to make loving Him my defining priority and my constant prayer throughout the year was that loving Him would be at the center of every single thing that I did.

When I began to really focus on loving God, I noticed a connection between loving Him and being loved by Him. I no longer strive to love Him because I am commanded to do so. I now long to love Him, with every ounce of my being, simply because the more I understand how much He loves me, the more I want to love Him in return. It is this natural sense of wanting—a yearning with all that is within me—to love Him in return. I don't need a command to make me love Him…I long to love Him. 1 John 4:19 —“ We love because he loved us first .”—has taken on new meaning for me.

Understanding God's love for me has also freed me to love others. I've come to understand that God loves me too much to allow anything in my life that is not ultimately for my good…including the people He places in my life to love. 1 John 4:7-8 begins with a command to love one another. However, it explains that love comes from God. I must first know God and be born of Him in order to love; I cannot love, if I do not know God because God IS love. As I learn to accept, receive and trust His love then I am free to love in return…and oh how wonderful that freedom is!

It doesn't end there, though. 1 John 4:11-12 says “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”. The word we get “complete” from in the Greek means "to bring to an end by completing or perfecting; to add what is yet wanting in order to render a thing full.” It is in loving others that God's love comes full circle, so to speak. All emptiness and longing to be loved is made full—is perfected and made complete—when I love others, out of His love for me.

I am able to love because He loved me first. The more I understand God's unfathomable love for me, the more I find it impossible to keep that love to myself. I am free to love and long to love God with all of my heart, soul and mind and to love others as myself. As I do so, the deep longing that I've always had to be loved is being filled to overflowing with the most perfect love imaginable…the love of my Father.

I challenge you to make ‘loving the Lord your God with all of who you are' your defining priority this year…your Number One Resolution. My second challenge is that ‘loving your neighbor as yourself'—placing the same value on others as you do yourself—will be your Number Two Resolution. If you can't do those two things, then I pray that you will ask the Father to help you understand his love for you. (My two previous articles on Understanding the Father's Love—Daddy's Girl and Freedom from Fear—might help.)

May you Press in to Him in 2009!

Photograph by Carie Magee, Fort Worth , TX . All rights reserved. Used with permission.

BIO

Debbie Guinn was born in Phoenix, AZ, graduated from Southwest Baptist University and has lived in Texas since 1994.  She is the single mother of three daughters and lives in Ft. Worth Texas .  Debbie resigned from her job as an Administrative Assistant in 2001 when the effects of Multiple Sclerosis began to take her sight.  She is a speaker, an editor, as well as an author who regularly contributes to Heartbeat the Magazine and is currently working on two books.  Debbie 's transparency and firm grasp of God's Truth challenges women of every age and stage to trust in the life-giving power of God's Word for every aspect of their lives.